Banking trends: what consumers want

The banking trends for 2022 are focused on two key areas; cryptocurrency and channel transformations.

More consumers are asking that cryptocurrency become an accepted payment option, yet 78% of banks have no plans to do this. If your bank isn’t yet ready to incorporate crypto as part of your services, it’s worthwhile including it in your content marketing strategy. Research by The Dubs and Dianomi found while cryptocurrency made up 18.25% of investors’ global search volumes, only 2.96% of global asset managers published content about it.

While cryptocurrency used to be only for Reddit forums or X threads, it’s now something the everyday investor wants to learn more about. This information gap offers a prime opportunity for your finance brand to provide reliable and trustful content consumers are demanding, helping you to form meaningful connections with interested investors.

How consumers are interacting with your finance brand is also changing. BAI has noted that banks are experiencing a channel transformation, where consumers are reducing their preference for in-person experiences for online ones. In fact, branch channel usage dropped from 20% to 19% between 2020 and 2021 with this trend continuing into 2022.

What this means is that your online and digital presence must continue to improve to ensure your clients remain satisfied. Ensure every interaction a consumer has with your brand on any channel is a positive one. This means employing customer service and chatbots across your social channels to help provide quick fixes to clients’ everyday problems. Additionally, providing relevant content that provides value to your target audience can help you to generate and nurture leads, pushing clients through the customer acquisition funnel.

Banking challenges: what isn’t working

Overall, banks are finding it challenging to meet customer expectations and improve the overall customer experience. According to BAI, there remains a mismatch in priorities when it comes to what consumers want and what banks are prioritising. By focusing on providing what consumers are demanding, your finance brand has more opportunities to deliver an exceptional overall customer experience both in-store and digitally.

Here are the top three areas finance brands should improve to meet consumers’ expectations, according to the report by BAI:

• Improve the omnichannel experience – The goal of an omnichannel strategy should be for customers to be able to flick between platforms without fear that the financial institution will lose their journey and have a positive interaction at every touchpoint. Providing exceptional customer service and relevant content across all social channels will improve your omnichannel marketing.
• Provide customisable solutions to consumers’ problems – It’s the era of personalisation and it’s time your finance brand jumped on board. Not every solution is appropriate for every consumer, and it’s important your finance brand can deliver relevant and personalised solutions to everyday customer problems.
• Provide financial education – Consumers want educational content from their finance brands. With most consumers today feeling financially stressed, delivering educational content can build loyalty and trust by helping them build better money management tools. In fact, 47% of consumers believe it’s their bank’s duty to help them make better financial decisions.

As BAI reports, “Improving the customer digital experience is the top business challenge
for financial services organisations, and their top investment priority, too”.

What can your finance brand learn from this?

Identifying the challenges and trends in banking can not only benefit banks but all finance brands. Delivering content that provides value on topics your clients want is a clear way to build meaningful connections with interested consumers. Identify what topics you’re not delivering content on that your target audience is demanding.

With the continued digitisation of financial services in addition to the habit changes COVID created, it’s never been more important to prioritise your digital services. Building a great omnichannel marketing experience alongside personalised solutions and educational content can ensure your brand effectively generates and nurtures leads.

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eStore enters banking

While the eStore initially lived exclusively on FNB’s website, they have now integrated it within their app, empowering clients to use FNB like a neobank if that’s their preference. FNB has approached its mobile app and website in a similar way to how retail giants operate. By integrating retail features users can easily navigate and locate the products and services they require. The retail features they have integrated include:

• Shopping cart
• Checkout process
• Filtering of products
• Account selection tools
• Comparison tools

FNB has further streamlined the acquisition process and made it easier to access help and support at all stages of the loan and checking process. By providing easy access to financial experts through the mobile app and eStore, FNB can nurture leads and personalise its service.

Vincent J. Delie, Jr., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of F.N.B. Corporation and First National Bank explains, “We combine the latest industry technology with personalized service so that customers can access the tools, information and consultation they need, whether they are in a FNB branch or are using an online or mobile device.”

Making banking easier

Why this feature has become so successful isn’t simply because it’s user-friendly and easy to navigate. FNB has also combined it with great finance content that’s both fun and educational.

In their knowledge center, FNB has segmented their information to tailor it to different audiences. This type of content hub is effective in ensuring content is targeted at specific audiences, while remaining easy to navigate for users. With a mixture of blog content that is easy to understand, infographics and short engaging videos, FNB has varied the style of content helping to keep it fun and fresh.

By providing extensive educational content that is easy to access alongside FNB’s eStore, users can easily select and apply for the banking product that’s right for them.

Takeaways from First National Bank’s eStore

FNB’s eStore has made banking easier by integrating a customer-centric design that’s familiar to users into their mobile app and website. By combining educational content that’s designed for the everyday consumer with easy-to-use banking navigation tools, FNB has found a winning formula that helps nurture leads and convert clients.

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Chase Bank launches charity initiative across the UK

Chase Bank is looking to improve children’s literacy levels in underserved communities, with 1 in 4 (27%) 11-year-olds in England leaving primary school unable to read well. Partnering with the National Literacy Trust, this program is a part of Chase Bank’s new ‘Chase Rewarding Futures’ venture.

Initially focusing on improving schools’ accessibility to resources, Chase aims to continue this program by empowering families and carers with the skills to improve their child’s literacy levels. This is the first part of their overall plan to invest back into underserved communities across England.

Why finance brands should promote their philanthropy

Finance brands can make large, positive changes for communities by aligning with and creating philanthropic initiatives. Additionally, aligning your finance brand with a charity can benefit your overall marketing strategy.

Benefits include:

• Loyalty – Charity and philanthropic initiatives can increase brand loyalty when practiced genuinely.
• Gain a Millennial and Gen Z audience – Millennial and Gen Z audiences are wanting their finance brand to represent their values and to do good. In fact, 81% of millennials say they want to support brands with corporate citizenship.
• Convert leads – Aligning with a charity and making your initiative a part of your overall content strategy can help generate and convert leads. With 71% of consumers saying they prefer to buy from companies that align with their values and shoppers under the age of 40 preferring to give back through where they shop, charity can help your finance brand acquire a new client base.

The key to aligning your finance brand with charitable initiatives

It’s not quite as simple for your finance brand to choose a charity and donate money to it. It’s critical that your finance brands’ philanthropy is genuine and aligns with your overall values. A finance brand choosing to align with an environmental organisation while simultaneously investing in large-scale mining is a contradicting charitable initiative and won’t have the desired effect.

Integrate your charitable initiative into your content strategy and showcase the progress you have made and contributed to in that space. For Chase Bank, they have a dedicated section on their site detailing their initiatives and it will soon become a space for the impact they have created. They have also made it a feature on their social media, sharing updates and events alongside the hashtag #ChaseRewardingFutures.

At the heart of it, your charity needs to align with your overall values and resonate with your target audience, if you want it to become a successful part of your overall marketing strategy.

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The success of financial wellness

Financial stress is one of the number one concerns around the world. In Australia, 95% of Australians were stressed about money in 2021. In the UK, 39% of adults (20.3 million) don’t feel confident managing their money and 11.5 million have less than £100 in savings. And in the USA 72% of Americans reported feeling financial stress each month.

While most consumers are feeling financial stress they’re willing to improve their financial literacy – and finance brands are the best equipped to help. Financial wellness tools are in demand by consumers, presenting a prime opportunity for your finance brand to create authentic connections with clients helping to build confidence in your brands’ capabilities. In fact, 47% of consumers believe it’s their bank’s duty to help them make better financial decisions.

Providing consumers with educational, interactive and easy-to-use tools that integrate seamlessly with their current financial accounts can equip them with better saving and investing habits. With 50% of customers more likely to consider staying with their bank if supplied helpful content, offering financial wellness tools can help your brand’s bottomline.

What makes Life Plan App different

Bank of America’s Life Plan App has been hugely successful. Account balances of Life Plan users increased by $34 billion one year after the product’s launch and more than 5 million of their users use the app today. But what were the keys to its success?

• Easy to use – The app doesn’t require users to input vast amounts of information and the design of the app is user and mobile-friendly.
• Appeals to Gen Z and Millennials – Millennial and Gen Z clients account for 62% of the app’s user base. With 74% of Gen Z not feeling confident about their personal finances and 73% of them wanting to improve their financial literacy, appealing to this audience through their marketing and content strategy has seen widespread adoption.
• One-on-one personal guidance with financial specialists – The app promotes and makes it easy for clients to create appointments, in-person or virtually, with their financial specialists. Over 1 million appointments have been made as a result of the app, ensuring clients are not only getting the help they need, but they are also creating authentic customers relationships, trust and loyalty.

In early 2022, Bank of America plans to integrate their AI virtual assistant, Erica, into the app. This will further support clients by providing personalised insights and help, enabling them to reach their savings goals.

Financial wellness lessons for finance brands

At the end of the day, consumers want greater financial wellness tools that offer personalised help. With most consumers experiencing financial stress regularly, by providing them with the right tools to help them save you can build trust, loyalty and authentic customer relationships.

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Best strategies implemented by bank advertisers overall

With the pandemic advancing consumer’s reliance on online banking technologies, it makes sense that the best bank advertisers utilised digital platforms to their advantage. Social media generated the most impressions for bank advertisers with YouTube being the top digital advertising platform. Short videos remain the top way to gain the most impressions across all social media platforms. Your finance brand should create engaging video content that is tailored to your audience and shared across your social media platforms to garner better engagement, generate leads and improve brand awareness. At the Dubs we created short doco-style videos to capture the attention of millennials where they already live, driving them to spark up a real conversation with the brand in Facebook Messenger.

Content that gained the most impressions were ones that were:

• Quirky – Comparethemarket.com’s ‘meerkat ad’ remains one of the most recognised and well-known finance advertisements in the UK and Australia. Creating fun, quirky and engaging content can create a lasting impression enabling you to generate leads and improve brand recognition and trust.
• Educational – Educational content shared across your social media platforms remains one of the top methods of advertising for bank advertisers and other finance brands. Understanding your audience and what information they need to know will ensure you build trust, loyalty and brand awareness.
• Emotional – Digital storytelling can help your finance brand create emotional connections with consumers improving engagement. This method can help you generate relatability, bridge the approachability gap and improve brand trust. Sharing finance stories like the NRMA’s Story of Help content hub or Allstate’s award-winning digital storytelling campaign ‘Worth Telling’ can help you build authentic customer relationships.

USA best bank advertisers

The top two most successful bank advertisers in the USA during 2021 were JP Morgan Chase and Fifth Third Bancorp.

Fifth Third acquired 441,698,444 impressions with an average estimated cost per 1,000 views of $0.12. Fifth Third showcases the importance of understanding and analysing third-party data to identify your target audience and the required paid media strategy to reach them. In line with their younger demographic, they created advertising that was personable and quirky with a woman clad in a blue suit acting as their brand ambassador throughout all ads. This helped to make their content memorable and improved brand awareness, resulting in a 21% increase in brand consideration over a one-year period.

Australia #1 bank advertisers

The top 2 bank advertisers in 2021 in Australia were the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac. The top places banks advertisers in Australia published content were Facebook, YouTube and RealEstate.com, with Facebook accounting for 90% of impressions indicating it’s still a widely effective platform for banks. The prominence of RealEstate.com.au also indicates the effectiveness of advertising on digital platforms that are intertwined with banking – as people look to purchase a house they can also be advertised tailored banking products. Additionally, RealEstate.com.au enables finance brands to share sponsored content across their site in the form of blog posts. This provides a space for banks to share targeted content directly to interested audiences with one such example being from the Commonwealth Bank ‘How to prepare to buy a home when you’re not on a deadline’.

Commonwealth Bank split their advertising across the three different channels relatively evenly with socials making up 39%, video making up 39% and banners making up 22% of their content strategy. Their video content was shared across all social platforms 100% of the time and garnered impressive engagement with their recent Instagram video feature football player Sam Kerr garnering 96,400 views. This video was released after the news that footballer Sam Kerr has beat previous Australian goal-scoring records making it timely and engaging. This reveals short video content that’s reflective of current interests is a great way of capturing consumer attention.

Westpac’s ‘Life is Eventful’ ad campaign was a large success as it was a perfect reflection of inclusive marketing. By being more inclusive and representing a wide variety of individuals’ lived experiences Westpac stands out from the crowd of generic bank advertising trends. This campaign has helped them connect with clients and create authentic relationships.

UK advertising winners

The top two UK bank advertisers in 2021 were Nationwide Building Society and Halifax.

Halifax has a 51% popularity score according to YouGov, a non-profit media company that rates and analyses customers’ impressions on businesses within the UK. Like Westpac, their 2021 ad campaign ‘It’s a People Thing’ saw the bank utilise a relatable lens to build brand awareness and trust. Following different people and families in a traditional British street, Halifax showcases the ups and downs of a wide variety of people, helping to minimise the approachability gap by creating personable content.

Nationwide Building Society, who has a popularity score of 57%, launched a savings campaign in 2021 which saw everyday people share their savings goals and tips as well as a chance to win £100 prizes. This campaign reflects the growing demand from consumers for banks to provide financial wellness services. It was largely successful with 183,500 accounts opened and more than £55 million saved since its launch. It indicates the importance of finance brands reflecting consumers’ needs in their advertising strategy as well as the importance of offering educational services in relatable and personable formats.

Lessons for finance brands

When analysing the top bank advertisers in the UK, USA and Australia it’s clear to see that personable and relatable advertising content is the most successful with consumers. Platforming real customers’ voices and a wide variety of experiences can help your finance brand connect and build authentic customer relationships. Offering engaging video content that is educational and inclusive can improve brand awareness, trust and loyalty. Finally, ensuring your advertising strategy is tailored towards your target audience is vital for your advertising to have the desired effect and generate meaningful leads.

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With the average home buyer considering two banks or lenders when applying for a mortgage, 47% of them chose a brand they had no prior connection to and only 34% of them chose their primary bank. A strong content marketing strategy that is tailored to your finance brand’s target audience can be what makes your products and service stand out from the crowd. From your finance brands website to social media channels, how you market your home loans could either be a competitive edge or see you lose out on generating meaningful leads.

What consumers want from the home buying process

TD Bank’s Mortgage Service Index Report revealed what consumers found most important in the home loan process and what they liked. Overwhelmingly, consumers valued responsiveness, honesty and transparency, with 70% citing that as the most important aspect. This indicates a need for banks and lenders to create an informative marketing strategy that has the consumers welfare at the forefront. Other areas consumers find important in the home loan process include:

• Making the process easy-to-understand
• Personalised advice and guidance
• Education about all areas of the home loan process and affordability programs
• In-person consultations

These consumer insights can help banks and lenders understand how to market their home loans effectively by catering to the information and resources their target audience wants and needs. By marketing home loans through educational content, personalisation, and in a streamlined way banks and lenders can gain a competitive edge. Not just a case of expecting that a single educational content piece will lead to acquisition, when mapping out a content strategy banks and lenders need to consider how they’re addressing these needs at each stage of the home buying journey over time.

Website content

When looking at the home loan content of banks and lenders in the US, UK and Aus, across the board website content was focused on providing a home loan calculator and fast statistics about the current interest rates. The majority of web pages were focused on providing information for people already looking to get into the housing market, not for people looking for more education. Brands that did particularly well with their home loan content were the ones that presented a hybrid of both, offering information for people who are actively looking for a home loan and those that wanted more financial education.

Additionally, having a content hub of home loan content that allows customers to explore a wealth of relevant educational content that addresses questions and queries at each stage of the home loan process is valuable for finance brands. A hub-and-spoke model could benefit your finance brand as it’s user-friendly and offers easy-to-access information that consumers want.

So, how should finance brands market their home loan content?

• Offer educational content at each stage of the home loan process to help ensure consumers understand key information.
• Offer an easy-to-use home loan calculator and fast statistics about current interest rates.
• Always encourage web visitors to seek further information through in-person channels.
• Gather key customer information, like emails and phone numbers, to enable your finance brand to nurture leads.
• Create a content hub that offers valuable information about each stage of the home loan process to help inform interested audiences.

In the UK, Barclays offers a hybrid of educational content and the key information individuals need to know in order to select the right loan product. With a vast array of content for first home buyers and everyone in between, Barclays targets different market segments through their informative content. While this content hub is what buyers are looking for, they could benefit from redirecting consumers to in-person meetings and gathering key consumer information through acquiring their emails or phone numbers.

Looking to the US, the Bank of America lacks educational content for the first home buyer but includes a simple home loan calculator that is easy-to-understand and operate. Additionally, they offer many opportunities to connect with a home loan specialist helping to capture vital customer information and nurture customer relationships ongoing.

Finally, Bank Australia offers a simple and clean user interface that showcases the key information for their four different home loans. While Bank Australia provides information in a clear and informative way, it relies on the consumer to understand the home loan process. One feature that Bank Australia has done well in marketing their content is that they have ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ at the bottom of the screen, aiding customers to find information quickly and easily. They also have a permanent ‘Apply’ symbol and ‘Enquire’ symbol at the top of the page when customers scroll, encouraging leads and enabling them to gain key consumer information.

Overall, Bank of America, Barclays and the Bank of Australia primarily catered their information to people who already understood home loans and what they were looking for. While Barclays did a good job of providing a content hub of educational content, the other two banks could benefit from including links to where customers can gain educational information to help build trust, loyalty and a strong customer relationship. Funnelling consumers to contact the bank is a great way of gaining important customer information and provides the opportunity to both generate and nurture meaningful leads. This was done successfully through multiple links and pop-ups.

Social media content

Home mortgage lenders, not banks, are much more active on social media in regards to creating home loan content. Unlike their websites which offer information to individuals that already understand home loan processes, social media is used for education and helping first home buyers understand the lending process. With informative posts that provide step-by-step guides to the home loan process, social media is a platform that intends to create authentic customer relationships through easy-to-understand content. Many lenders are also effectively utilising their social media channels by enabling chatbot messaging. On Facebook and Instagram, lenders encourage customers to ask questions, enquire about mortgages, and ask for advice creating multiple user touchpoints.

Social media content on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook is more in-line across the board with what customers are wanting according to the TD Mortgage Service Index Report, as it’s educational, simplified, and creates a personal connection with consumers. On LinkedIn and X home loan providers are focused more on the business and its activities rather than the customer.

So, how should finance brands market their home loan products and services on social media?

• Create educational and easy-to-understand content to help inform customers.
• Utilise chatbot and messaging features to help customers and also nurture leads
• Create relatable content that connects with users emotionally.

In Australia, Aussie, a home lender and mortgage broker, utilises Instagram, Facebook and X. While X is utilised mainly for updating customers on Aussie’s charitable activities and business ventures, Facebook and Instagram are used to educate and build customer relationships. Creating carousels on Instagram that explain all aspects of the home loan process, for both experienced buyers and first home buyers, Aussie breaks down complex subject matter into small and digestible pockets of information. On Facebook, Aussie leans heavily on short video content focused on education and showcasing real Australian stories, building greater trust and transparency with audiences.

In the US, Omega Lending is active on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Omega Lending Group’s content is focused on education and storytelling, with a lot of their content celebrating customer and employee stories. Their educational content is centred on short and simplified explanations of all areas of the home loan process, making it easy for anyone to understand. However, what they do particularly well is by connecting with customers through narratives. Purchasing a home for many is rooted in emotions so by playing off this exciting and joyous moment in many people’s lives, Omega Lending can create authentic and trusting relationships with consumers.

In the UK, Generation Home is active on Instagram, X, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Generation Home is targeted at first home buyers, with their content centered on educating and informing customers about every aspect of the home buying process. On their Instagram, Generation Home blends educational content with content that showcases their team, helping to build strong connections with customers. YouTube portrays similar content with short snappy videos that explain the home loan process in a way that is easy-to-understand and engaging. X, Facebook, and LinkedIn are more centered on their business accomplishments, with a few of their educational posts from their YouTube channel and Instagram being displayed. Overall, Generation Home has created a targeted content strategy that is tailored to their specific audience through supplying educational and informative content. As they are targeting first home buyers, who may be more emotionally invested and uncertain about the buying process, they could create content that reflects this nervousness to form trust, strong customer relationships, and loyalty.

Home loan content marketing trends

Most home loan content is focused on providing information about the product rather than connecting with the customer and delivering solutions to their needs. While home loan product information is important for buyers to know, it can be intimidating and complex for first home buyers widening the approachability gap. Home loan marketing strategies should be focused on two things:

• Educational content – With around 67% of the world financially illiterate and 56% of consumers agreeing financial education would make them more comfortable engaging with financial institutions, this is an area of opportunity for home loan providers.
• Emotional content – The homebuying process is an emotional and idealised goal in much of the UK, US, and Australia. Creating content that tells the stories of individuals who have bought homes is a perfect way for your finance brand to encourage aspiration and action, to generate and nurture leads, and create authentic customer relationships.

To deliver for customers and your brand, home loan content needs to align with customer needs at each stage of the home buying journey. To improve your home loan content mix, banks and lenders should incorporate a mix of educational content that ensures customers are able to make an informed decision, before introducing product information closer to the bottom of the funnel. This content needs to be planned so that it supports customers over time, helping them to build trust in your brand.

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Connecting banks

Open banking is expanding throughout the UK, connecting banks and financial organisations through their personalised services. At its core it connects banks, third parties, and technical providers through the secure sharing of customer data, and to their benefit. Its aim is to encourage collaboration and improve the financial sector by enabling innovation to prosper.

Powered by open API’s (application programming interface), open banking is changing the way the financial sector operates. API’s offer a reliable and secure way to share the consumer data they’re comfortable with, without risking the customer. Asking customers what data they want shared can build strong rapport as your finance brand is seen as safe and trustworthy. This concept of APIs can be integrated into a range of financial institutions, not just banks, providing a needed shift away from other methods of collecting data such as screen scrapers.

This collaboration between financial services is here to stay and if your finance brand isn’t quick to react it could be left behind. In fact, 59% of financial services leaders believe open banking will have a significant impact on their business in the next 5 years.

Open banking is a two-way street

Open banking places the consumer and what they want at the forefront. It encourages healthy and trusting relationships between finance brands and banks as it’s a give and take methodology on both ends.

The open banking model encourages consumers to give up their information in exchange for a greater customer experience and value. And people are receptive to it, with a 2019 study by Deloitte finding 1 in 5 customers believe open banking is valuable. The critical ingredient for success for your finance brand is that you have spent time and resources building trust.

For all types of finance brands it’s important trust is created between your customers and your brand. The success of open banking demonstrates this. However, the 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed trust with the four sectors they look at – business, government, NGOs and media – is at an all time low. This reveals a prime opportunity for your finance brand to work on building strong and trusting relationships with consumers in order to continue to gain important customer data that can help improve your customer experience and marketing strategy as a whole.

Benefits of open banking

Open banking has a number of benefits for financial services that implement it. While 92% of finance leaders recognise customers are the major beneficiaries, 54% of fintech leaders, 57% of bank leaders and 25% of wealth management firms see themselves as also directly benefiting. Some benefits include:

• Improve customer relationships – Through offering solutions to customers problems finance brands can build stronger customer relationships improving retention and therefore increasing profitability for the long term.
• Collaboration – Collaborating with third service providers offers an opportunity for finance brands to think laterally and offer unique value propositions to customers.
• Better use of data – With more customer data and analytics finance brands can better understand their target audience, empowering them to create a stronger customer experience.
• Expand services – Finance brands can create valuable product offerings for current customers and web visitors through a clearer understanding of what their target audience are looking for.

What open banking can teach finance brands

At its core open banking demonstrates the importance of trust, building relationships between consumers and finance brands, and providing a strong customer experience. Not only that, its success demonstrates the growing demand from consumers to have a digital finance experience and the need for a customer-centric approach to marketing strategy. While open banking is currently focused on the banking sector, all financial services can reap the benefits of collaboration and data sharing.

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According to research by HSBC, there has been a sharp 5% increase in UK mobile banking habits due to the pandemic, with people preferring online platforms and contactless payments. UK banking habits have adapted to the pandemic with customers migrating to online platforms over in-person branches and adapting to contactless payment systems. Adapting to these changes means your finance brand must re-evaluate its digital platforms to ensure consumers can continue to access and enjoy a fulfilling customer experience. To add to this, COVID-19 has affected UK banking habits by altering customer relationships. Today, consumers are wanting greater flexibility, security, and education to combat the pervasive uncertainty throughout the UK and the world. While last year COVID-19 may have felt like a momentary experience, nowadays we know it’s here to stay, making it critical finance brands adapt and pivot to consumers’ changed behaviours if they want to remain competitive.

UK banking habits are going digital

While physical stores remain a necessity for finance brands, more and more customers are preferring to bank online. This large-scale shift to digital platforms means if your finance brand didn’t prioritise its online banking experience previously, it’s time to do so. In fact, in 2020 76% of British adults and 83% of small and medium businesses used online banking.

While the online banking experience is one aspect finance brands should be looking to strengthen and improve, another aspect is their digital marketing strategy. Ofcom’s Online Nation 2021 Report, found the UK spends more time online than most of Europe. With so many people spending time online, finance brands need to seize the opportunity to gain a greater digital presence, generate more web traffic, and target more potential clients. To do so you should:

• Ensure your finance brand is utilising digital platforms and online spaces where your target audience spends time.
• Create partner content that targets the values of your audience and helps generate greater trust and awareness.
• Create content that reflects your audience’s interests to generate meaningful and positive impressions on consumers.

Customer relationships are changing

While previously banks and customers may have experienced quite a formal relationship, today that’s changed. Customers today expect and want more from their financial services and the pandemic has simply crystallised this need. With the pandemic increasing customer anxiety, instability, and uncertainty, UK banking habits have subsequently altered. Now people are expecting and calling on finance brands banks to offer greater flexibility, security, and education to get through these times – and if these areas aren’t delivered your finance brand needs to recognise the reputational risks.

Improving communication with customers and providing educational resources are great ways of ensuring your finance brand is giving the support customers expect. By empowering them to make smart financial decisions, during a time of great financial stress, this will generate greater trust and loyalty. During times like these, your finance brand is on the frontline of supporting people – whether that’s delivering stimulus payments, helping to rework financial plans or managing their investments in a time of volatility – it’s important to demonstrate that you’re there to support customers and clients and put their needs first.

Contactless payments are the way forward

If the pandemic has done anything, it’s made people acutely aware of what they touch. UK banking habits have responded with contactless payments increasing in prevalence. In fact, there has been a 57% reduction in cash used in the UK, with a 7% rise in credit cards, a 10% rise in debit cards, and a 14% rise in online payment tools. To add to this, UK finance experts believe by 2030 only 9% of payments will be made using cash. Because UK banking habits are adapting to contactless payments it’s critical your finance brand considers how it can continue to deliver a full customer experience.

Looking to the way neobanks fulfill customers’ expectations is one-way finance brands can adapt to UK banking habits. Starling Bank and Monzo are the two leading neobanks in the UK currently. With both neobanks having a large social media presence, an adaptive and personalised user experience, easy communication channels, and a range of gamified elements, these banks have ensured customers are satisfied with their contactless experiences.

UK banking habits are changing for the long-term

It’s clear UK banking habits have changed for the long-term and it’s never been more important for finance brands to understand their customers’ behaviours and adapt to them, not only to satisfy customer needs but also to maintain a competitive edge. While some aspects of financial services have changed, the importance of the customer experience hasn’t – your finance brand simply needs to adapt to these changing times.

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Winning over millennials’ love (and money) is no easy feat. But, now, we’re bringing you a finance content marketing case study that’s done just that. 

Meet Santander Bank’s Prosper and Thrive, an online hub packed with relatable, meaningful, quirky, inspiring finance content, from ‘frugal travel tips from frequent flyers‘ to ‘money tips from everyday millionaires‘.

Santander Bank, founded in Spain in 1857, is the 16th biggest banking institution in the world, with US$1.4 trillion in assets under management and a total market capitalisation of $69.9 billion.

The challenge

Despite being stereotyped as big spenders, more interested in eating out than buying houses, millennials are actually pretty anxious about money. 

In fact, around 63% of millennials in the UK worry about their financial future, according to a 2019 study by Revolut Bank. 

But they’re not interested in old-fashioned advice — in the form of facts, figures, and complex and often confusing investment commentary. Millennials want finance content that’s clear, dynamic, diverse and offers choices.

Millennials want finance content that’s clear, dynamic, diverse and offers choices.

Plus, ethics are paramount. When investing, 75% of millennials are likely to consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria, along with return, according to a 2017 study by Lonergan Research, commissioned by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA).

For Santander Bank, which is more than 150 years old, winning millennial customers meant coming up with a new approach to financial content marketing. 

The strategy

Rather than simply creating more millennial-friendly ads or tacking millennial-friendly stories onto existent finance content marketing, Santander went big. It dedicated an entire hub – and strategy — to the generation. And, where the bank had previously focused on SEO-optimised content aimed at winning customers, it turned to raising awareness and building relationships.

Importantly, Prosper and Thrive stands alone. Sure, it carries Santander branding, but it looks and reads like a magazine, packed with advice, ideas, inspiration and entertainment. Forget sales. 

Content ranges from financial advice, to lifestyle tips, to left-of-field features. It’s delivered for maximum attention: think catchy headlines, unusual angles on tired topics and an upbeat tone.  And it’s organised for ease: users can search via three categories — ‘Save Up’, ‘Master Debt’ and ‘Live Life’ — or explore organically, beginning with ‘Featured’ and ‘Recent’ content on the home page. 

The goal is to ‘re-introduce millennials to an industry they have shied away from by delivering financial content that improves their financial wellbeing, but doesn’t feel like it’s coming from a bank,’ Jessica Newton, vice president and director of engagement planning, Arnold Worldwide, told Marketing Dive.

What’s more, from day one, Santander focused on distribution, with an extensive plan that targeted audiences with relevant content, achieved through a mix of both organic and sponsored media – and measured the results.

‘Having a measurement plan from the very beginning allows the marketer to be the storyteller and explain to the organisation the impact content marketing is having on the business,’ Paul Pennelli, vice president and director of digital advertising at Santander Bank, told gotcha!

The results

It’s not just millennials who are thriving and prospering thanks to Santander’s financial content marketing; it’s also the bank. Launched in 2016, Prosper and Thrive attracted more than one million readers within the first year, inspired 200,000 interactions and scored more than 1,000 email sign-ups. 

A bonus was customer acquisition. In fact, Santander, in tracking the number of accounts opened through Prosper and Thrive, enjoyed 12 times the results expected. 

The hub also won the 2017 Content Marketing Institute Award for Best Creative Collaboration in Content Marketing and was a finalist in the Best Content Marketing in the Financial Services category. 

Ready to reach millennials with targeted financial content marketing? Get in touch to get started. 

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The post Santander: a finance content marketing case study for millennials appeared first on Financial Marketer.

The World’s most trusted banks

As banks and finance marketers continue to fight the battle for trust, the Financial Times has released its 19th annual Bank Image Survey, listing the top performing banks when it comes to perceptions. The global top five were:

1. J.P. Morgan
2. Citi
3. HSBC
4. Bank of America Merrill Lynch
5. Santander

So what separates these banks from the rest? Well, there are some fundamental principles that strengthen consumer trust, and the right content can be a great way of getting your message across.

1. Keep it simple – EY’s Global Consumer Banking Survey revealed that consumers are much more likely to trust banks to do the basics – like keeping money safe – than to deliver on bigger strategic pledges, like providing unbiased advice. Keeping your content straightforward and using plain English in your written communication should help to improve perceptions. Take a look at top performer Citi’s clear explanation of its accounts, supported by appropriate iconography to make reading and understanding simple.
2. Be transparent – Being open about rates and fees seems pretty obvious when it comes to building trust, but all too often important terms and conditions are tucked away in the small print. Consider using intuitive content types like infographics to make sure the customer knows exactly what they’re getting. A good example from the global top five is Santander, who is using online tools like its mortgage overpayment calculator to provide customers with a clear way of understanding what happens to their money.
3. Make cyber security a priority – Let’s face it, nowadays personal information can be just as valuable as cash. A security breach is a sure-fire way of destroying customer trust, so keep on top of your security requirements.
4. Prioritise the customer journey – Deloitte’s recent Banking Trust Index surveyed Australian consumers to find out what’s important to them when it comes to rebuilding trust in the finance sector. The results show important emotional triggers for customers, for example, they want to feel respected and as though the bank has their best interests at heart. Insights like these should be woven throughout a bank’s customer journey to create positive customer experiences from sign up to advocacy.
5. Be on call – Perhaps the most important way of building trust is being there when your customer needs you. Providing attentive service with limited waiting times means your customers will always know you’re there for them. Top five bank HSBC provides 24-hour customer service for customers all over the world.

One thing we do know is that with the number of challenger banks and FinTechs disrupting the global finance market, traditional banks need to make building trust a priority. With the right content and these five simple principles, you can build your wealth of trust.

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The post What it takes to be one of the world’s most trusted banks appeared first on Financial Marketer.